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The 5 Most Common Pitfalls In Mobile App Marketing

Modern audiences are becoming more and more mobile; they are constantly switched-on and are ready to compare data and make consumer decisions at the drop of a hat. At the same time, mobile applications are becoming increasingly popular and have already been proven to increase revenues for companies that have taken the plunge into the mobile app marketing world.

But success with apps may not be as straightforward as you might think. There are five common pitfalls often encountered when setting up mobile app marketing campaigns, and you should avoid them if you want to achieve your goals.

1. The “If You Build It, They Will Come” Fallacy

Mobile apps need to be developed with a marketing plan in mind. Your team may have spent months creating the most sophisticated, top-of-the-range, high-tech app that will simply blow away any competitors; however, if you have not pre-planned a marketing campaign for the app itself, then all the hard work will be worthless.

There are many ways in which you can market your app, even leveraging your existing digital assets. These include: subtle links on your website, mentions in your social media campaigns, and pop-up notifications that appear when someone opens your mobile-optimized website.

It’s not wise to push your app upon your audience, but rather, subtly ensure that your audience is aware of its presence and the advantages to be gained by using the app. It is also vital that you ensure that your app is optimized for mobile app store search engines if you want to increase your organic audience.

Planning Is Essential

2. Thinking Of Mobile As Static

Mobile devices are not the same as static desktop devices; therefore, apps should not mimic desktop features and functionality. Developers sometimes believe that consumers will want to see the same things on an app that they expect to see on the Web. However, mobile devices are quite often slower than a desktop, and therefore, mobile navigation needs to be simplified and text size and fonts must be adapted to ensure a better user experience.

In addition to simplifying navigation, text size and fonts, it’s also important to utilize mobile’s unique power. When a user is on a mobile device, the app can (with their permission) locate them, giving the brand the opportunity to offer localized deals and functionality, thus increasing the power that mobile marketing has to offer.

3. Mistaking A Mobile Website For An App

Just as mobile devices are not like desktops, it’s also important to note that a mobile-optimized website is not an app. A mobile website is simply your online website that adapts to the screen on mobile devices to allow easier viewing.

4. Failure To Interact With Your Customer

Mobile app marketing is distinctively different from traditional advertising as it requires a certain degree of interaction — both by the business and the consumer. It is increasingly important to provide a way for your customer to communicate with you via the app in real-time — and there better be someone listening. App users expect to receive instant responses to their questions so they feel like they are being heard.

Reviews and ratings are one way the app user can communicate with the app maker, but this one-way communication does not satisfy users. To ensure your app isn’t deleted, and continues to be utilized, you need to enable two-way communication via the app. This is vital for mobile marketing success and will improve customer service and user experience.

5. Neglecting To Follow Through

Getting users to download your application is a fantastic first step into mobile marketing; but, it is not your final step. One of the most difficult tasks app developers face is ensuring app retention. What is worse than spending months developing an app only to let it be ignored by most who’ve installed it after just a couple of usages?

Many businesses find running contests, or offering discounts and vouchers, have encouraged retention to some extent. Other ideas might include adding a forum, enabling social networking or offering a game from within the app.

Don’t fall into the above common pitfalls when setting up your mobile app campaign. You can succeed in mobile app marketing by pre-planning your marketing campaign, providing user-friendly features in your apps, building your apps for customer interaction and knowing how to foster app retention.

Some opinions expressed in this article may be those of a guest author and not necessarily Marketing Land. Staff authors are listed here.

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Chris Jones

I’m not sure if these are the 5 most common mistakes but #1 is without question the most important one for developers today. With some many options out there for marketing an app it’s often difficult to figure out what works.